Gervais has made a career creating characters that "just head straight to it," though more often than not, their frankness returns cringe and chaos rather than the accolades Gervais has grown accustomed to these past few years. From The Office's hilariously tactless corporate higher-ups to Extras' PR-agent-imploding celebrity cameos to his new film The Invention of Lying, which features a world where no one has ever told a fib, Gervais has built a tidy little empire out of small ideas that lead to big laughs.

Born in Reading, England, the 48-year-old comedian first gained widespread recognition with his BBC mockumentary-style examination of all things socially awkward, The Office. In addition to creating the show, Gervais took on the role of David Brent (who would be adapted into Steve Carell's Michael Scott for the U.S. version), the friend-deficient regional manager of a medium-sized paper company in a medium-sized town who is more interested in being the office comedian than running a company. Famously, the somewhat experimental format of the show bombed with focus groups, but the BBC decided to go with it anyway and it quickly found an audience at home and even gathered a cult following Stateside. While simple in its scope, The Office was a revolutionary break from the sitcom format: trading stars and laugh tracks for a study in body language and explorations of "the beauty of stupidity." The show was a naturalistic look at the white collar workplace, that strange universe where most people spend the majority of their workweek traversing a regulation-infested minefield of carpet and cubicles interacting with people whose names they would never know in the off-hour world. Not to mention the annual Christmas parties. The Office managed to strike a chord with cubicle-dwellers around the world, spawning remakes in Quebec, France, Germany, Chile; talk of an Office popping up for Russian market; and of course, a giant hit here in the U.S., which Gervais executive produces.

Gervais enjoying a moment with co-star Jennifer Garner in a scene from his directorial debut, The Invention Of Lying. Opening this fall, the movie is about an alternative universe where no one has ever told a lie until one man discovers the art of fibbing for both fun and fortune.

"The only remake we're involved in to any extent is the American one," says Gervais. "For the other ones we just give permission and keep an eye on them. The American one is the only one we have any creative input. And that was the most substantial in the first few months, and now there's over 100 episodes. I think it took ‘til episode 40 for us to direct one because we wanted to get its own legs, its own life. And it was definitely the right decision. And I couldn't be prouder for them. There's only one other I would want to be involved in - there's talk of an Indian remake. I might take an Executive Producer credit on that because there's a billion people in India. So I imagine the ratings will be good."

Gervais followed The Office with an HBO show Extras, which chronicled the exploits of a couple of under-employed actors who navigate show business while interacting with actual movie stars playing egomaniacal caricatures of themselves. In an early - and as it turns out, strangely prophetic - episode, Kate Winslet, playing herself playing a nun on the set of a Holocaust drama states "It's like, how many [Holocaust dramas] there been? We get it. It was grim. Move on. No, I'm doing it because I've noticed that if you do a film about the Holocaust, [you're] guaranteed an Oscar. I've been nominated four times - never won. Schindler's bloody List. The Pianist. Oscars coming out of their ass!" Winslet, would, this past year, win her first Oscar for her role in The Reader - a Holocaust drama. When Winslet won a Golden Globe for the same role a few months prior, Gervais took the podium not long after and quipped "Well done, Winslet. I told you, do a Holocaust movie, the awards will come, didn't I?"

More recently, Ricky has made transition from mocking Hollywood to joining its ranks (though he claims that he tries to avoid that physical town of tinsel as much as possible). He made his Hollywood debut with a supporting role in the Ben Stiller film Night at the Museum (a role he reprised in this summer's sequel). The sci-fi family comedy shouldn't be confused with the auteured work Gervais expresses his admiration for, as his participation was more of a payback for friend Ben Stiller who guest appeared on Extras. He made his first starring role in a feature in the 2008 film Ghost Town. At the time of this interview Gervais was in Hampsted, in the midst of pre-production on Cemetery Junction, a film he wrote and directed with Stephen Merchant, a longtime collaborator and Office and Extras co-creator.

He also just put the final touches on his full-length directorial debut, The Invention of Lying, which will be released by Warner Brothers this fall. It's a conceptual film (and yet a "more traditional comedy" than his TV work) about a parallel universe where no one ever lies, until one man in modern times discovers that what comes out of your mouth isn't necessarily what has to be reality. It's a film "in the vein of Sleeper meets Groundhog Day," he comments before proudly pointing out that it also happens to have the "comedy cast of the decade. It's got Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, Christopher Guest, Jeffrey Campbell, John Hodgman, Jennifer Garner, and myself." You will also find performances by Patrick Stewart, Jason Bateman, Rob Lowe, Jeffrey Tambor, and Louis C.K.